Harvey Gantt

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Harvey B. Gantt (born 1943 in Charleston, South Carolina) is an architect and politician. In 1963, he was the first African American to be admitted to Clemson University in South Carolina, the last state to hold out to racial integration. He received a degree in architecture with Honors from Clemson and a Master's degree in City Planning from MIT.

From 1974 until 1983, Gantt served on the Charlotte City Council. He was then elected and re-elected as the first and to date only black mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, serving in that position from 1983 to 1987. A Democrat, he staged two unsuccessful U.S. Senatorial campaigns against Republican Jesse Helms in 1990 and in 1996, around which time Republican Party operatives came forward as having worked within the Democratic Party of North Carolina, reported in Raleigh's News & Observer. The Helms' campaign then used well-crafted TV ads^[1] against affirmative action. An advisor to Helms at the time, Charlie Black, has since gone to work as chief campaign adviser for John McCain.^[2]

He manages a successful architectural practice, Gantt Huberman Architects, and remains active in politics, having served on the North Carolina Democratic Party Executive Council, the Democratic National Committee, and the National Capital Planning Commission.

His daughter, Sonja Gantt, is a news anchor at WCNC-TV in Charlotte.

[edit] External links

• News & Observer biography
• City of Charlotte biography
• SC African American History
• Harvey Gantt and the Desegregation of Clemson University
• Oral History Interview with Harvey Gantt at Oral Histories of the American South

Preceded by Eddie Knox (D)

Mayor of Charlotte, NC 1983 - 1987

Succeeded by Sue Myrick (R)